The Mad and the Faithful
by Asfaloth-Sekhmet
Summary: Faithful is one of Immortan Joe's six wives, recently escaped from the Citadel alongside Furiosa and bearing the tyrant's second child. There are many things awaiting her in the desolate wasteland that is Fury road, but will one of them be peace? What will Fury Road make of the mad and those who refuse to lose their hope? Max/OC
1. The Brave

**Chapter 1, 'The Brave'**

 **Disclaimer:** **In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to Warner Brothers Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Kennedy Miller Mitchel, RatPac-Dune Entertainment,** **George Miller, Doug Mitchell, PJ Voeten,** **et cetera, this work is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work. Any similarities to other fanfiction stories are completely coincidental.**

 **A/N: So this fic is placed in the Mad Max: Fury Road Universe, and I'll try to use the correct terminology for everything that I come across but please let me know if I've used the wrong name for something or someone. Reviews are appreciated, flames are not.  
**  
There is barely any air to be found in the hidden compartment of the war rig, where Faithful has been hidden alongside her five sister wives.

All she can breathe and smell is gasoline and sweat, and she clutches Angharad, the other pregnant wife, in nervous fear as soon as Imperator Furiosa starts the engine. The compartment rumbles to life around her.

Toast, the Dag, Capable and Cheedo have formed a small circle in whatever space they have down here and have lit a small oil lamp to see, but it's the lack of air that is already making their journey difficult. They haven't even left the Citadel yet; Joe has yet to make his speech and deliver on his promise of Aqua Cola to the Wretched that inhabit this town, and Angharad squeezes Faithful's hand as soon as she senses her discomfort.

Faithful hates that Ms. Giddy has been left behind. Hates that their only source of comfort and reason has been left to deal with the rotten monster that is about to greet the desperate Wretched all around them. But she hates Immortan Joe more.

"Once again, we send off my war rig to bring back guzzoline from Gas Town, and bullets from the Bullet Farm!" Joe's muffled voice cries, and Faithful wishes with all of her might that one day she can push him off of the Citadel's highest point. "Once again, I salute my Imperator Furiosa! And I salute my half-life War Boys, who will ride with me eternal...on the highways of Valhalla!"

Angharad holds her tighter.

The War Boys can be heard chanting, and Faithful can practically see them saluting the tyrant with the classic hand sign.

In a way, she supposes dully, it's quite intelligent of Immortan Joe as a leader to train his war boys to expect and worship death; to have an entire nation of soldiers willing to sacrifice themselves and reach Valhalla.

She isn't sure if there's really any truth to the place, anyway. She never paid attention to Ms. Giddy's stories about it. She feels strange believing in something specific; her general motto has always been to have faith that one day, she will be free. Depending on a God or a place to access freedom like the War Boys do with their Cult of the V8 doesn't sit right with her, and it's one of he many things she'll always dislike about the War Boy's mentality.

But she can't blame them for that.

She can, however, blame the piece of filth that is talking again, voice echoing as he continues to address his sickly people.

"I am your redeemer. It is by my hand, that you will rise from the ashes of this world!" He cries, and within fifteen seconds she can hear the roaring water that signals the deliverance of Aqua Cola to the rotting people that call the Citadel home.

Hate. So much hate for the disgusting man that has made her and her sisters into objects. So much hate for the ways he immortalizes himself and turns himself into a God-like figure for helpless War Pups and War Boys to fall victim to. So much hate that has been built up inside of her for years that she wishes she could take out on something, but there is nowhere to place it.

Suddenly the rumbling of water stops, and Faithful's hatred is fortified once more when she recognizes that Immortan Joe has stopped the water supply. As per usual it is far too soon, and the shouts and screams of disappointment from the Wretched she hears reveal that barely any of them have received the water they need to survive properly.

"Do not, my friends, become addicted to water!" Joe's voice booms once more over the loudspeaker, and Faithful winces. Capable clutches her hand to her right. "It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence."

Faithful grinds her teeth together and ignores the urge to scream out in frustration, but it isn't until Furiosa starts moving the rig that she can release the breath she's been holding in. They are finally on the road, finally putting some distance between themselves and Joe...finally going to the Green Place.

All he will find in their absence is the paint that is now drying on the walls of their cage - angry scrawls and questions that they had written before their rushed departure this morning.

She feels the war rig pick up the pace, and Faithful gently pulls her hand away from Capable to clutch at her swollen stomach. At five months, it is obvious that she is with a child, and she retains whatever faith she can that she will eventually be free and be able to raise her baby in the security of the Green Place. Her child will not be a Warlord. Her child will not have its fate decided for it. Her child will not be property, as she has been. One cannot own a human being; cannot treat it as a thing or a machine.

She is tainted, dirty. Her child will not be.

She knows Angharad's thoughts mirror hers at the moment, because her head comes to rest on Faithful's shoulder.

The five minutes afterwards of peaceful driving are interrupted however, when Furiosa makes a hard left.

All the wives sway slightly in response to the motion of the car, and the Dag lets out a small squeak of surprise. Cheedo shushes her. They are supposed to stay quiet, although Faithful doesn't think that any of the War Boys in their small party escort would be able to hear them over the sound of the road.

She is scared. And rightfully so, because Fury road is covered in traps and remnants of past populations. She knows of some of them, such as the Buzzards, a scavenging tribe of Russian descent that live in underground burrows called Sunken City, but she is unfamiliar with any others. She assumes all of them are hostile, dangerous, and willing to turn her back to Immortan Joe for a prize.

She can do this, she tells herself, jaw clenching in stress. She can survive. She will survive. Her child will survive.

The wives stay quiet as they listen to the War Boys speak to Furiosa about going off-road, listen as she continues to give them unsatisfying answers and keeps leading them further East. Eventually, Faithful knows that saying 'it's a detour' won't work anymore, but for the time being it's enough. Furiosa's original plan is unknown to her, but she imagines that they cannot go long before Immortan Joe figures out what is going on and sends a war party after them, or a warrant for their heads and his prizes 'treasures' back. They also can't go long before bandits start to come after them.

It isn't until they start to hear panicked shouts and sounds of foreign motors that they begin to worry. It gets harder to breathe with every passing second, and Faithful nearly loses it when she hears the first explosion. Things are starting to heat up.

"I can't breathe." Angharad starts to heave for breaths, and the other girls around Faithful are clearly struggling to take in breaths as well. The war rig jolts and jiggles, emitting creaks and groans that are matched with the sounds of explosions outside.

A War Boy shouts, and the sound of a car collision echoes right beside Capable. She jumps in response, and visibly panics when the war rigs loud horn sounds out again.

"Who are they?" Capable questions hurriedly, and Toast sends her a look as if to remind her to stay silent.

"Buzzards." Faithful responds in a hushed tone. "Remember, the Russians Ms. Giddy told us about?"

"They want to kill us." The Dag whimpers, and Cheedo puts an arm around her shoulder.

All that can be heard are the horrifying sounds of road war, as the wives try their best to breathe and give each other comfort. It isn't long however, before the air gets horribly thick no thanks to the dust that is undoubtedly entering the compartment from somewhere, and Angharad can take it no longer.

"I'm going." She announces, crawling towards the hatch despite Faithful's attempts to stop her.

"No! We have to stay down here!" Her sisters try and pull her away from the hatch, but Angharad is already pulling it open and crawling her way across the vehicle to the driver's compartment. She is out of reach before anyone can stop her.

"Angharad!" Faithful cries out in horror as she watches her sister disappear, hoping to whoever is out there that won't be spotted. Nausea takes hold of her as she realizes she has no control over what will happen. "Oh..."

She cannot lose Angharad. Losing her closest companion, the wife whom she has spent the most time with, would be utterly life-shattering for her.

A minute passes, and then another and another and it feels like Faithful has been waiting hours before another Buzzard truck can be heard approaching. This one is bigger, because the War Boys' shouts are significantly more excited. She can hear the impact of spears and the sounds that the Buzzard's vehicle makes as it tries to slash the war rig's tires, but the 78 foot 18 wheeler doesn't give up that easy.

Suddenly a horrible sawing noise can be heard, and Cheedo covers Toast's shout of shock with a quick hand when it gets louder.

Someone is trying to cut their way into the rig.

Faithful holds onto Capable, and envisions her own faith as an entity that she must hold onto as tightly as she is doing to the redhead. She keeps her faith that Angharad is okay, and that they will all emerge from this safely.

Then, seconds before a gigantic explosion sounds out, Angharad crawls through the trapdoor and rejoins the group of hidden wives.

"Angharad!" Faithful cries, reaching towards her desperately.

The two reunite, holding each other tightly, and the other wives begin to ask questions.

"It's bad." Angharad announces, coughing slightly. "Stay down."

But things are suspiciously quiet for awhile after her return, and Faithful gets a bad feeling. There is something wrong. The War Boys have begun shouting at something else now, but they are not crying their classic chants that they usually do when they see an enemy. No – this is something else.

Before the wives know it, sounds of a storm are sounding out all around them. Their compartment is close to the floor, so they don't get knocked around too much, but they can hear the lightning and sounds of the wind as it beats down on the rig.

"Sandstorm." Faithful identifies loudly before Capable can begin to ask. "It's a sandstorm."

None of the girls know what that means, but they hope that the war rig can get through it. If there is any fighting going on they cannot hear it, because the only sounds are the engines of the rig and the thunder that doesn't seem to stop. The rig swerves left and right and left again, and the hidden passengers try to retain their balance along with it.

Whatever the hell the storm is throwing at it, the war rig keeps charging through, and the wives don't hear anything for the next several minutes before there is a huge resounding crunch towards the front of the rig, and then all is silent once more. They drive for another couple of minutes, until the sounds of the storm pass them and all is quiet besides the rumbling of the engine.

Faithful doesn't realize she's been holding her breath again, but she calms down when Capable and Angharad squish her between them. The compression helps.

It is another five minutes before Furiosa brings the rig to a complete stop, and the wives guess that she gauges whether or not she's been followed through the storm before she hops down and opens the door to their hidden compartment.

"It's not safe yet. I want to wait awhile longer until this storm clears up. See if anyone caught our trail."

She closes the hatch before any of the wives can respond, but she is courteous enough to leave it open a crack to allow them to breathe better. Angharad inhales deeply in thanks, and the rest of the girls stay silent. This goes on for another hour. Most of the girls are very frightened, Faithful notes, but Furiosa's speech before they departed this morning still rings loud in most of their heads and helps them remember their strength.

 _If you want to get through this, you need to be able to adapt. To change, no matter what happens. The wasteland is unforgiving_ , the Imperator had stated that morning as they had begged her to take them with her, peering at them curiously with her green eyes. _If you want to make it to the Green Place, you need to be able to survive Fury road._

Other parts of her harsh motivational speech have been blocked by Faithful's own brain, and she tries to remember them. But before she can even begin to search her mind, Furiosa is opening the hatch again.

"All clear." She grunts, and helps the girls out of the compartment.

The first thing Faithful notes as she exits the rig is how bright the sun is shining. Even though she knows no more than half a day has passed since they left the Citadel, it feels like it's been weeks. She expected darkness; the comfort of knowing that they are protected by the shroud of nighttime for at least a couple more hours, but they are not so lucky.

She is suddenly thankful for the thin white material that covers their most intimate areas, as any other color would have contributed to overheating and surely caused fainting spells with the way the sun is beating down on them.

Furiosa hooks up the water and mother's milk to allow the wives some time to clean and refuel, and starts to clean the rig up by banging against it to rid the machine of all the sand that it has become clogged with.

Faithful and Angharad go for the water first, turning on the hose and allowing it to bathe them. The Dag quickly grabs a pair of bolt cutters from Furiosa's compartment and begins to cut off everyone's chastity belts, and Faithful gulps when she is forced to recognize yet again that she and Angharad are the only ones who are not wearing them.

She ignores the thought and busies herself with washing. She helps Capable and Toast wash as well, and they all drink from the hose. The Dag is having some trouble cutting Cheedo's belt off, and so Faithful takes the bolt cutters from the thin blonde and starts to work on it herself. She almost has it, until they are all suddenly interrupted by a large thump.

Faithful's neck snaps in the direction of the sound towards the back of the war rig.

It is a man wearing a metal mask, attached to a War Boy by a long chain and pointing a gun towards them with the most maddened blue eyes Faithful has ever seen. Her throat tightens in horror. They do not know who this man is, or what he wants, and the last thing they need right now is somebody else threatening them.

"We're not going back." Angharad announces bravely, just as Faithful manages to cut off Cheedo's chastity belt.

It falls to the ground with a dull crack, and the man's eyes snap to it briefly before his eyes widen and he focuses on Furiosa.

"Water." He rasps. As the current keeper of the hose, Angharad looks at Furiosa for confirmation that she can approach the man before she begins to make her way towards him.

Faithful lets a small cry slip from her throat as the wife makes her way away from her, finding that she cannot deal with the idea of her in danger, and Angharad stops for a split second. Furiosa holds a hand out towards the black haired beauty.

The man's eyes fall on Faithful, and his gaze moves down to her stomach. Her mouth snaps shut immediately, and she finds herself utterly grounded by his fascinated gaze. Her hands tighten on the bolt cutters. He doesn't remove his stare from her for a little while, until Angharad starts moving again. He grabs the hose from her as soon as she gets close enough, and shoves it as close to his mouth as possible before drinking from it.

The cage mask he has on makes it difficult, but he manages.

He makes Angharad turn around to look at her sisters, and Faithful catches her eye. It takes everything she has not to buckle and sprint towards her, but Furiosa's gaze holds her back.

When he is done drinking he throws the hose down, beside the War Boy's head who is still lying unconscious on the sand. Faithful hopes he doesn't wake up. Dealing with two men, one of which is sure to turn on them, would be even worse than this.

With a sudden viciousness, the caged man lifts up the chain that connects him to the War Boy, and Faithful's stomach drops when the gun points to her. The man grunts – he wants the chain cut. She can see a string of red that is linked in the chain, leading her to believe that this man was a blood bag for the War Boys; a universal donor that was used to fuel the war effort. She gulps, and attempts to hand off the bolt cutters to Furiosa.

Her plan is halted by another grunt from the man, "You."

Faithful meets his eyes once more and starts to slowly make her way towards him, eyes moving to Angharad for comfort as she nears her target. She keeps one hand on her stomach, hoping to remind the man that if he is going to try anything, Immortan Joe will have his head. She isn't comforted by this plan at all, but she hopes it will spare her some hurt in case worst comes to worst.

She finds an extremely disappointing lack of mistrust in the man despite their situation, and Faithful falters in her step as she questions why she isn't trembling like Angharad or fixing this man with a dark gaze like Furiosa.

Once she is close enough she lifts the bolt cutters up, and looks up at the caged man again. There's something oddly intriguing about the way he looks at her; like he's trying to figure out an equation or something, and she finds that she keeps getting lost in his eyes. They are a beautiful blue, with twinges of clear grey and what seems to be white. It reminds her of the water that Joe hordes and deprives his citizens of.

Even in her transfixed state, she can hear the Dag behind her murmur, "Angharad...is that just the wind, or is that a furious fixation?"

Then the man jiggles the chain, and their moment is lost. She clenches her jaw and steels herself before lifting the cutters to his chain and trying her best to cut it, struggling visibly. She is still thin despite the pregnancy, and has never had many muscles to begin with, which makes the job hard. The man notes her struggling, but before she can finish cutting, a thundering cry sounds out and Furiosa tackles him to the ground.

With a cascade of grunts the two go tumbling down, and Faithful jumps away from the action with a startled shout. She's never liked violence, and although she expected Furiosa to try something like this she would have thought the woman would have waited a bit longer.

Furiosa manages to gain the upper hand and rips the man's gun from his clasp, aiming at his chin and releasing the trigger. Instead of going off, the weapon releases nothing but a hiss and a click, making Furiosa lose her temper as she realizes that she's been duped. In her brief bout of shock, the man manages to tackle her back to the ground and there is a flurry of movement as the wives realize they need to help.

Faithful rushes forward alongside Angharad and the two grip the man's chain, still attached to the War Boy, pulling it with all of their might to try and get him off of Furiosa. It works; he comes tumbling backwards towards them, but Faithful finds herself falling as the sudden release of weight on the end of the chain is taken away.

Then the man is back up, swiftly avoiding Furiosa's deadly advances with the bolt cutters. She swings at him furiously, living up to her name and causing the wives to scamper and get out of her way. The man jumps and ducks, crawls backwards and eventually finds the door that is caught in the chain between him and the War Boy to protect himself with. He raises it, and manages to block four of Furiosa's blows before her bolt cutters get stuck on the door, and he kicks her right in the solar plexus.

She twists and falls, nearly landing on her face but catching herself at the last minute with all one and a half of her arms. Faithful is once again reminded that, despite her appearance, Furiosa is anything but crippled and at a disadvantage.

The bald female rushes towards the truck, seemingly trying to get to something on it – a weapon, Faithful thinks, if only she knew where it was so that she could help the fellow woman – but it is at that moment that the wives realizes the War Boy has risen, and he and the man lift their connected chain to trip Furiosa. She lands on the ground again with a frustrated growl, picks herself up, and bangs on three skulls attached to the side of the truck.

The skulls dissolves into sand, revealing the pistol hidden underneath them. Before Furiosa can begin to grab the weapon however, the War Boy manages to tackle her and wrestle her to the ground once more.

Faithful is frozen. She doesn't know what to do to help, and she feels useless.

Furiosa struggles against the War Boy, but the mad caged man, seeing what the War Boy has done, begins to tug on the chain and move the two towards him. Faithful sees his plan already; he wants to get the pistol himself, and she suddenly springs into action in response.

She and the rest of the wives try to pull the caged man away from his task, but he quickly turns towards them only to hiss and spit in their direction. Faithful, along with the rest of the girls, cry out in shock and reel back. She doesn't know what she was expecting, really; this man is just as concerned with his own survival as with everyone else.

He switches places with the war boy, who is tossed back as the mystery man sprints towards Furiosa and the two struggle with the pistol between their hands. He manages to unload the clip, but the weapon still has a shot packed into it, and Furiosa fires towards the man's head only to have him move at the last second. The bullet ricochets off of the rig, a dull crack resounding from it.

The clip lands in front of the War Boy, who army crawls over to it and rejoices, "I've got it!"

His glee does not last for long, as Faithful charges forward alongside her sisters and the six try to wrestle the small black box packet with bullets out of his hands. The War Boy is stronger than they predict, and they struggle as he fights back against them to keep the ammunition. Pulling and tugging with all of their might, they manage to get him onto his back only to realize that this has upset the fight between Furiosa and the mad man once more.

They are struggling over each other still, kicking and grunting and punching and kneeing every change they can get. They move so fast Faithful can barely keep an eye on them; it's as if they are interlocked in a never ending fight. She tries to focus on getting the clip out of the War Boy's hands, but the disciple is so greased up with paint and motor oil that it is proving nigh impossible for the wives to grasp onto his hands.

Furiosa manages to hit the man's head with the hose lying by her shoulder, but her moment of glory is short lived as he smacks it down seconds later and flips her onto her front. Straddling her, Faithful can see that Furiosa is quickly losing the upper hand in the rapidly escalating situation and struggles for the clip that the War Boy is holding even more.

With a last surge of strength she manages to get her fingers around his hand, but his grip is like iron and before she knows it Capable's hands have lost their tight hold on his arm, and the War Boy is army crawling once more towards his chained companion.

In the span of five seconds, the caged man manages to grab the ammunition and fires three shots around Furiosa's head, before pressing the barrel of the gun on the base of her skull.

They've lost.


	2. The Bold

**'The Bold'**

 **Disclaimer: In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to Warner Brothers Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Kennedy Miller Mitchel, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, George Miller, Doug Mitchell, PJ Voeten, et cetera, this work is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work. Any similarities to other fanfiction stories are completely coincidental.**

Faithful can hear her heartbeat loud in her ears now, can hear the rush of blood that accompanies situations like these. She knows their odds of survival are close to none, but she can't lose her faith.

"Glory me, Blood Bag!" The War Boy exclaims, ripping her from her thoughts. "We snagged her alive. He's gonna shred her. Shred her!"

Faithful can only assume they are speaking of Furiosa, who is still laying defeated, face down in the sand where the crazed man last shot at her. She hates to think of what could happen to Furiosa – or any of them, if they are sent back to Joe.

No. That is not an option. Not a possibility. They are going to the Green Place of many mothers, where they will pave their own paths and allow their children to live in peace.

"Bolt cutters. Chain." The caged man commands, ignoring the crazed ramblings of Joe's slave. Faithful stands still, shock keeping her from making any moves she may regret.

Sometimes she forgets she is walking for two people.

"Oh, look at them. So shiny. So chrome. He's gonna be so grateful – we could ask for anything." The War Boy pants, looking towards the horizon where Joe's forces have appeared as he complies with the man's orders.

He fetches the bolt cutters and severs the chain that keeps him and the man linked, and Faithful frowns as she sees that there isn't much comradery between the men. Blood bags and their War Boys usually don't have much of a connection, this much is true, but the mad man seems to have no desire to even make conversation with the War Boy.

These observations only add to her confusion and discomfort.

"I wanna drive the war rig." The pale boy comments as soon as the chain hits the sandy ground. "What are you gonna ask for?"

Instead of responding to his question, the man turns to the War Boy and begins to rip the jacket he is wearing off of him.

"That's my jacket." He growls as the War Boy relents.

"Heh – sure! You can ask for more than a jacket." But then the War Boy is falling to the ground, and it takes everyone a second to process that the man has knocked him unconscious. Faithful's stomach drops even lower as she realizes how unpredictable this man is.

"We're going to the Green Place." Suddenly Angharad lunges forward and begins to make her way to the war rig's driver compartment, which Faithful knows is a bad idea. She attempts to stop her from her position near Capable, but before she can even shout at her sister wife the mad man is already firing towards her.

Faithful hears a scream, but doesn't realize it is her own until she claps a hand over her own mouth.

Can't lose Angharad. Can't lose faith.

The mad man pushes past the only other pregnant woman in the circle, and climbs into the driver's seat of the vehicle. Capable goes to stop him, but Furiosa stops her. At this point Faithful approaches Angharad and sees that a bullet has grazed her leg – not anywhere else. She tries to control her laboured breaths and holds her sister wife.

"We're going to the Green Place." Angharad has her eyes shut, and Faithful finds herself tracing over her self-inflicted scars, a symbol of resistance and rebellion against Joe's tyranny. "We're going to the Green Place of many mothers."

"We are." She assures her, placing her forehead against Angharad's temple. "We are going to the Green Place of many mothers."

The last thing Faithful sees before the man drives off are his blue orbs peering down at her and Angharad, and she feels like he is staring right into her soul. She thinks she sees a sliver of regret pass into his eyes, but no matter what she saw it doesn't matter, because he proceeds to take off in their escape vehicle. She doesn't even have the energy to glare at him as the rig rumbles away, instead choosing to comfort Angharad and her injury.

"How does it feel?" Furiosa marches to stand in front of the two, Capable hot on her heels.

"It hurts." Angharad spits, beautiful face contorting in pain. Faithful wishes she could take the pain herself.

"Out here everything hurts." Furiosa spits right back, peering down at the two pregnant woman with narrowing eyes and moving her gaze to the other wives after a moment. "You want to get through this?"

The silent unanimous answer is yes, but no one needs to say it.

"Then pick up what you can, and run."

Faithful doesn't need to be told twice, and she grabs Angharad's hand as they begin to move as fast as they can after the rig. She doesn't know if Furiosa still has a plan, or if she knows something that they don't, or if they are sprinting away from inevitable death, but she continues to run. She clings onto her Faith, and to Angharad, and eliminates everything else from her mind, including the War Boy they have left on the ground.

Again, the passing of time is noted by all the girls. It feels like hours that they run, when in reality it is minutes before they catch up to the war rig. It seems like a miracle, except it's not. It's one of the many tricks Furiosa has hiding up her sleeve.

"Kill switches." The master of all trades herself calls up to the mad man sitting in her driver's seat as the group of wives gathers behind her. "I set the sequence myself. This rig goes nowhere without me."

The mad man stares down at the woman who glares right back up at him defiantly, obviously very angered. They are at an impasse.

"You can get in." He grunts.

"Not without them." She shakes her head, having finished putting on her mechanical arm that was strung along the mirror of the rig.

"So we wait." The man sits back in the driver's seat, and Faithful almost hangs her head in defeat.

They are about to be caught by the biggest war party she's ever seen go after anything in the wasteland ever before, and this mad man wants to play the silent game like an ignorant smeck?

Furiosa seems to follow his childish train of thought, and so she climbs up to talk to him a bit closer. "You're relying on the gratitude of a very bad man. You've already damaged one of his wives, how grateful do you think he's going to be?"

At this, the mad man's eyes flicker towards Faithful and Angharad on the ground, where they are still clutching each other's hands so tightly one would think them conjoined. Faithful gulps, and the man's eyes follow the motion down her throat until they reach her stomach once more. She feels exposed, but not in a bad way. Not like when Joe took her and had his filthy way with her. Not like when her first memory of womanhood was being told that as a healthy full life female, she would be bred until the Immortan decided her useless.

No – this isn't like that at all. The way he looks at her is different. But she still can't puzzle it out.

"You're sitting on 2000 horsepower of nitro-boosted war machine." Furiosa continues, aware that time is quickly slipping out of her grasp. "I'd say you got about a five minute head start."

This almost convinces him, but her final question ends up pushing him over the edge.

"You want that thing off your face?"

Fifteen seconds later, Faithful is sitting in the backseat of the war rig next to Angharad, all of the wives still tense and high on the adrenaline that this situation has given them.

Furiosa tries to start the engines, but the man stops her, gun still trained on her suspiciously. "Ah ah."

He reaches below the steering wheel himself and pulls out another pistol, quickly accepting the knife she give him to begin to cut off his mask as well. Faithful doesn't know which game either of them are playing.

Once the nerves are significantly calmer in the rig and the wives start to allow themselves to feel frustration and anger once more – this time directed towards the mystery man sitting in shotgun – Faithful is able to move on her own accord and begins to tend to a wounded Angharad.

"Of all the legs you had to shoot, this one had to be attached to his favourite." Faithful murmurs indignantly as she bandages her sister wife's leg.

Angharad winces in pain, but Faithful coos at her and the blonde relaxes long enough for her to be able to finish applying the first layer of bandage. Blood is already soaking through it.

The man grunts back after a second, and Faithful whips her head around to see what he wants. She finds that his gaze and his pistol have redirected themselves towards her stomach, as one bushy eyebrow of his arches up towards the sky.

"What?" She attempts to clarify, disbelief brewing in her stomach as she begins to think he is suggesting something he shouldn't be suggesting.

He motions to her swollen stomach in response to highlight his silent point, and she looks down at it for several seconds before letting her long black hair shield herself from his gaze.

He is implying that she is another one of Joe's favourites because of her pregnancy, and Angharad's jaw clenches in response to his implication. They both know that there is some truth behind his guess, but neither of them say anything because he's still got the gun trained on them, and one wrong comment could result in a death that none of them are prepared for.

Faithful can feel his gaze on her even as she finishes applying bandages to the Splendid, but his attention is soon turned to the presence of other weapons in the compartment. He moves to grab two guns held in safe slots above the driver's seat, as well as behind the seat itself and underneath. His grabs are harsh, angry and fast.

Faithful can tell he has a lot on his mind, but she wants to know where he came from and what made him this way before she starts casting judgment upon him.

"Smeg!" The Dag is not so open-minded, but Faithful forgives her because her taunt is in response to his rough handling of the only bag they've brought with them, filled with ammunition and covered in a thin white piece of cloth that is identical to the garbs they have clothed themselves with.

Once he has grabbed all of the guns he can possibly reach, he spots one taped to the door and snaps his fingers towards it. His desires are clear.

"You don't have to do it just because he tells you to." Angharad murmurs to Cheedo, whom the man's eyes have fallen upon.

This man's behaviours are reminiscent of all of the other men's behaviours the wives have had to deal with during their time as Joe's breeders. Short, bossy, rude. Ignorant, angry, scary.

"What choice to she have?" The Dag whimpers in turn.

"He's not going to hurt us," Toast assures everyone, but her voice wavers a bit. Faithful is sure that she isn't the only one who can hear it. "He needs us."

A flurry of voices ensues in response to this, Angharad, Faithful and Furiosa being the only three who remain silent.

"Why?"

"To bargain."

"Oh, he'll hurt us, alright."

"Do you think he's coming to the Green Place?"

"Never." The Dag sneers, ready to insult. "He's a crazy smeg who eats schlanger!"

The war rig drives on, and the man spots another rifle hanging on the ceiling above his head. He pays no attention to the voices in the back seat, instead choosing to glare at the weapon he's just found in disbelief that something so gaudy (it's the only brightly coloured gun they have) actually exists in the wasteland.

He busies himself with cutting his mask off once the disbelief subsides, and Faithful can't help but gaze at him curiously as the knife clasped tightly in his hand works to break the cage off of his face. Why did he end up in this position? What brought him to this place today?

Angharad's hand closes tighter around hers, and the rig falls into silence.

Then, in a moment of what seems to be realization, the man grips Furiosa's steering wheel and shakes his head. "No, no. Stay outta there."

He is speaking of the canyon they are headed towards, and the wives' eyes snap back and forth between him the driver as everyone tries to gauge what will happen next.

"Behind you." Furiosa looks past the man's shoulder, and he frowns in response.

He's not going to turn around, Faithful acknowledges, because he doesn't trust Furiosa. He wants someone else to tell him what she's talking about. Faithful looks out the right hand window alongside the other wives and feels her heart nearly collapse into a million pieces when she spots the distinct outline of a war party in the distance.

"Gas Town boys." Toast clarifies, and instinctively Angharad and Faithful reach for each other again.

In an effort to keep himself safe, the man tugs Toast towards him and carefully looks behind him where trucks have already emerged over the horizon. The short haired girl does not seem horribly discomforted by his action, and instead chooses to warn him.

"Don't damage the goods."

It is a reminder that Joe will want his treasures back unharmed, which means the mad man will have more than an army on his back if he leaves so much of a scratch on any of them.

Which, Faithful reminds herself as she looks down at Angharad's bloody bandage, he already has.

Angharad and Faithful quickly grab the binoculars and the brass monoscope sitting at their feet, and point them towards the horizon to see what is coming towards them. Faithful doesn't want to look, but she forces herself to use the binoculars because she knows Furiosa needs the information.

"What do you see?" Their driver asks a few seconds later.

"Big rigs," Splendid replies, as the two continue to gaze down the horizon. "Pole cats, flamers."

Faithful can see them too, she spots the chrome flamer cars before she can see anything else, and the polecat trucks make themselves clear seconds later. In all their black leathery, greasy glory, the Gastown Boys make a slimy entrance.

Although it did not take them long to respond to the emergency situation, Faithful wishes that more time could have been bought before a whole other war party responded to Furiosa's betrayal. It is making her nervous thinking about how chaotic a chase like this could get, and she does not doubt that it will get chaotic.

"And there's the People Eater himself." Faithful murmurs in absolute disgust, spotting the third warlord of the Wastelands, known for his cannibalism and gluttony.

"Coming to count the cost." Capable sighs in reply to this, and Faithful grimaces before lowering the monoscope and returning to her seat.

She finds that the mad man has taken to watching her intensely again, but as soon as she stares back for a couple of seconds he returns to his previous task of cutting his mask off. Again, she is frustrated as to why she cannot find a decent amount of mistrust for this person. She should feel hatred, or at least dislike, no?

The sawing noise continues for awhile, and Faithful keeps a tight hold on her sisters, but out of nowhere her train of thought is interrupted by a a harsh noise that startles everybody.

It feels like there is something holding the vehicle back, and after another second the rig starts to bump and jiggle.

"We're dragging something out back!" Furiosa cries with an angry yell, trying to look out her window to see what is causing the bumping. "I think it's the fuel pod!"

She starts to open her door and gauge how she is going to climb out, but to everyone's surprise the mad man holds out a hand to stop her.

"I'll go." He suggests, and without another word of encouragement Furiosa lets him go.

She watches him suspiciously as he takes the whole bag of guns – their guns, that he has collected and apparently is now holding hostage – with him and climbs out his side onto the roof of the compartment. Once they can hear the sound of his footsteps on the roof of the rig, the mood in the rig shifts again.

It makes sense that he is working with them, as he must have realized somewhere along the drive away from the Citadel that this is his best shot at surviving and getting away from being one of Immortan Joe's blood bags for the rest of his life. However this does not give any of the women any reason to drop their attitudes towards him, as it makes perfect sense to stay suspicious of men when all they have done is kill the world and turn Faithful and her sisters into breeders.

Breaking Faithful's train of thought again is Angharad, who moves into shotgun beside Furiosa despite a whine of complaint from Faithful.

"I'm here." Her soft tone comforts the black haired wife, whose two different coloured eyes watch the blonde carefully as she settles into her new seat.

Furiosa lifts the stick shift of the rig to show the wives that the caged man did not find the blade hidden inside, disguised as the top of the shift. Faithful gulps.

There are a few minutes of silence, and the wives nervously look out the right hand window to watch as the Gas Town boys creep closer and closer, but breathe a sigh of relief when they feel the rough jiggling stop. That means the mad man did something to help them, which is a nice change considering the day they've been through.

Faithful almost manages a sigh, but before she can even start to lean back and hold her stomach all hell breaks lose once more.

"Filth! You traited him!"

She yelps in shock and feels her heart nearly jump out of her chest as a War Boy literally pounces out from under Capable's legs and goes to strangle Furiosa from behind, and once again Faithful is forced to jump into action.

The girls manage to wrestle him back, realizing that this is the same War Boy they left behind when they first encountered the mad man.

Faithful doesn't know how the hell he managed to catch up to them, but Furiosa is now holding a knife to his neck while Splendid tries to stop her.

"No unnecessary killing!" The blonde soon-to-be-mother yells over the noise of the grunting and struggling, but Furiosa doesn't seem to mind pressing her dagger a little bit tighter against the War Boy's neck.

"This War Boy wants me dead!" The rig driver screeches, watching him squirm and struggle against the hold of the seven women atop him.

"We agreed!" Angharad pushes, reminding Furiosa of the pact made this morning in which the women had to promise that no lives would be lost if unnecessary, meaning that War Boys – who cannot be blamed for their indoctrination – should not be killed if it can be helped.

"He's kamakrazee!" Furiosa spits, clambering back into the driver's seat. She's had enough of this, but she's clearly made the choice to spare the boy's life.

"He's just a kid at the end of his half-life!" Angharad shouts at her, angry that Furiosa even thought of the idea of blaming the War Boy for his ways.

"No!" The War Boy suddenly shouts against them, pushing harder than before to sit up. The wives push him back down. "I live, I die. I live again!"

"Hold him!"

"Tie him up!"

"Throw him out – chuck him out!"

"You've got more friends." The mad man is back amidst the chaos in the driver's compartment, but Faithful doesn't take her eyes off of the War Boy who is struggling beneath her. Capable has taken to tying his hands together with his own chains, and it is taking all of Faithful's might to hold him down so that she can do so.

She is exhausted; she can feel it in every ounce of her body, but the adrenaline keeps her going. She wonders if this is what it feels like to be a War Boy. Dying and alive at the same time, so high off of adrenaline that they cannot feel their bodies breaking.

"Bullet Farmer." Furiosa announces, and Faithful's stomach contracts with dread. Three war parties. Three. They surely cannot survive this. "They're coming from the Bullet Farm."

Faith. She needs to remember her faith.

"It's over," The War Boy leers at Furiosa, sitting up with a sudden flare in strength and glaring her in the face as she looks behind her at the rapidly approaching Bullet Farm Boys. "You can't defy him."

"Just watch us, mate!" The Dag grunts as they pull him back, but not before he and Furiosa engage in a brief spitting war.

"He is the one who grabbed the sun!" The pale boy rambles, hands tied but still coming up to push back against the wives. Faithful winces as he continues to recite the Cult of the V8's classic chants, hailing Immortan Joe.

"Look how slick he's fooled you, War Boy!" Toast shouts as the girls open the door of the rig, preparing to toss him out. He struggles again, and Faithful is already sick of him.

"He's a lying old man!" Capable gets right in his face and that seems to shock him a bit, because he frowns and starts to register what the wives are saying.

"By his hand, we'll be lifted up!"

"That's why we have his logo seared on our backs!" Faithful screeches back, a harsh bite to her tone as the wind disrupts her hair and sends the long locks flying everywhere.

The logo of the V8 that has been branded onto her back stings along with her comment, as if some part of it is alive and listening to her words. It makes her shudder something horrible.

"Breeding stock!" Cheedo cries, each word like a knife in the girls' stomachs. "Battle Fodder!"

"No, I am awaited!" The War Boy is in denial, shaking his head as he shouts right back at the wives.

"You're an old man's 'Battle Fodder'!" Angharad screams, pushing him further out the door. "Killing everyone, and everything!"

"We're not to blame!" He argues, but Faithful has had it.

In a sense, he is right; he cannot be blame for his own brainwashing. That is the society's fault; the fault of the corrupt rule he has been born into, but his part in the war and his refusal to distinguish between what is morally right and wrong is where the line gets blurry for Faithful. She can forgive ignorance, but only so long as it does not directly threaten innocent lives.

And so she doesn't forgive him.

"Then who killed the world?!" She roars with a vigour she was not aware she held inside of her, and with a final grunt the wives manage to push him out of the rig.

Although she did not feeling it upon performing the action, she finds herself trembling as she is pulled back into the vehicle. A small part of her is concerned for the War Boy's fate, and she hopes that they did not fatally injure him when they pushed him out of the rig, but the rest of her feels like it is on fire.

Anger courses through her and fills up her lungs, making it hard to breathe even though she tries to slow her breaths down.

Angharad goes back to holding her hand.

When Faithful has calmed down enough she takes a moment to acknowledge that the rig is still heading towards the canyon, and that both Furiosa and Max are eerily quiet. She notes that perhaps this is because they were not expecting such a vigour from the six so-called innocent wives in the back seat.

She's scared to look towards shotgun, because she knows Max is staring at her. She can feel his eyes from a mile away, but she busies herself with stroking Angharad's hand instead. Thinking about what possible thoughts could be running through his head at the moment isn't something that she wants to place her attention on, and Angharad soothes her heart rate anyway.

"I made a deal up ahead for safe passage." Furiosa breaks the silence, and the man's attention is directed away from Faithful. "I don't know if it's still any good."

Then, the bald women turns her head to look at the wives. "Get back in the hold! Keep the hatch open."

Reluctantly heeding to her orders, one by one the wives begin to file down into the dreaded compartment. Although Faithful hates the idea of crawling back into such a wretched hole, she knows that for the safety of herself and her future child she must do anything that Furiosa directs her to do.

"I need you here. You may have to drive the rig." Furiosa tells the man as he curiously watches the wives descend into the bowels of the war vehicle.

Cheedo has gone first, and Toast follows her before helping the Dag down as well. Capable is the last one to go, but as soon as Angharad moves to climb down into the space after the redhead, the man stops her. Faithful is forced to meet his eyes in harsh question, because if Angharad isn't going, she won't either.

"You." The man points his gun towards the two of them, making them flinch. "You stay. You stay there."

Faithful exchanges a loaded glance with Splendid, aware that this puts them at major risk. Furiosa has instructed them to stay out of sight, which means staying put might ruin any chance of getting through this wild escape. What are this man's intentions?

The black haired wife is suddenly stricken with the terrible thought that perhaps the mad man wants to use them as a bargaining tool; wants to keep them readily available and easy to be spotted in case Immortan Joe happens to spot his prize breeders in the war rig. For several horrible seconds, Faithful truly believes that the man in the passenger's seat of the war rig is deliberately working against them, and he catches her horrified gaze.

His expression softens just enough for Faithful to second guess what she is thinking, and she catches him looking back and forth between her different coloured orbs. What is going on in that brain of his?

"Whatever you do, you can't be seen." Furiosa reminds the man as he continues to train his two guns on the three women left in the driver's compartment. "I'm supposed to be alone. That was the deal."

The man rises in response to this, and moves towards the hidden trapdoor.

"Down here." He directs Angharad to descend first, as she is closest to the door, and Faithful moves to follow her sister as she watches her go down.

Before she can step down into the hatch the man blocks her and steps down first, causing Faithful to freeze in her tracks. Putting anything between her and Angharad is never a good thing, but the man doesn't know this. He doesn't know how fast her heart is racing; how horrified she is of even putting more than five feet of distance between her beloved sister wife.

Then, to her utter horror, he mercilessly directs her to follow him down. He isn't completely hidden – rather, his head is peaking out of the hatch so that he can still have his gun drawn towards Furiosa and towards the wives at the same time, but it still makes Faithful extremely unhappy.

"Go." Furiosa pushes her, and with a last gulp Faithful submits.

She cautiously lowers herself into the hatch with an expression nothing short of murderous, practically daring him to try something so that she can break his nose. By the time she's low enough so that she is out of sight she is halfway across his lap, and she can feel the warmth radiating off of his body in the tight space.

Faithful is incredibly uncomfortable, and this man's heated gaze that runs over her only makes it worse. It feels like she is being picked apart by a trail of fire. Why is he looking at her this way?

"Hey, what's your name?" Furiosa gently calls down to the man, distracting him from Faithful.

She reaches out for Angharad's hand, and almost faints in relief when she feels the cold hand grasp back. Faithful can't see her, but holding Splendid's hand is enough at the moment. She cannot imagine ever surviving this without her.

At first the man doesn't reply, causing Furiosa to prompt him again. "What do I call you?"

It takes him no more than another second to reply, and he swings his head back towards Faithful before he answers, "Max."


	3. The Lost

**'The Lost'**

 ** **Disclaimer: In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to Warner Brothers Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Kennedy Miller Mitchel, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, George Miller, Doug Mitchell, PJ Voeten, et cetera, this work is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work. Any similarities to other fanfiction stories are completely coincidental.****

 **A/N: Thank you for the kind reviews!**

Max. Mad Max. How fitting of a name for the man who still has his finger around the trigger of a pistol, ready to fire a shot towards the head of any woman in this vehicle who makes a wrong move.

"When I yell your name, you drive out of here as fast as you can." Furiosa continues, and Max's gaze is directed back to the front of the vehicle as she shows him how to start the rig. "This is the sequence. One, one two, one, red, black, go. You got it?"

A singular nod is issued from Max in response, and the rigs drives on.

They drive through what seems to be endless canyon and mountain rubble, and Faithful – despite her brain screaming at her not to do so – sinks lower alongside Max to avoid being spotted. She's terrified, and Max won't stop looking at her. She hates being able to feel the heat of his stare as it pins her down, but she also recognizes that this feeling of being watched so intently isn't all horrible.

In a little moment of brash bravery, her gaze slowly redirects itself to his face. She hasn't gotten a moment to actually study him over or look at him for more than 10 seconds in a row, because of the disruptions during their voyage.

Her heterochromia-afflicted eyes, one green and one blue, ignore the gun that is grazing her cheek and plant themselves on his bright blue orbs. They hold each other in the gaze, and despite the feeling of security Faithful feels she spots the lack of stability in his eyes that reminds her of his madness. This is by no means a man who anyone should trust, but she can't find it in herself to fear him.

She feels like telling him, but she is too scared to speak at the moment.

So Faithful continues to stare, getting more and more lost in the waves of blue that are peering back at her. It's a moment that would be considered awkward in any other scenario, but Faithful doesn't feel awkward. They are sizing each other up, and neither one is backing down from the game.

Something against the roof of the rig shatters and causes several loud bumps, and Faithful jumps at this. Max takes the opportunity to check on Furiosa, and Faithful notices that his grip has loosened slightly on the pistols. She isn't sure whether she should be proud of herself for that.

She holds Angharad's hand tighter as the rig rolls to a stop, machinery hissing the whole way.

It takes a couple seconds, but the door to the driver's compartment opens and slowly, Furiosa's footsteps can be heard stepping out of the war rig.

Faithful can't hear or see anything that's going on outside, but Furiosa exiting the vehicle automatically makes her clutch her stomach in fear and causes her breath to hitch. Max notices, and shoots her a look that isn't harsh but reminds her to quiet.

"It's all here!" They hear Furiosa cry, presumably to the population she made a deal with. "Three thousand gallons of guzzoline, just like you asked!"

No one replies, and the wives don't know if she is speaking to one person or a whole army of people. They are stuck in the dark once more. Faithful thinks she remembers Ms. Giddy mentioning something about 'Rock Riders' – the men of the mountains who guard the passes in the large canyons, but she can't be sure. Much of her memory is fuzzy.

"I'm gonna unhitch the pod, you drop the rocks!" Furiosa's footsteps move towards the back of the rig, but then sounds of at least a dozen motorcycles greet everyone's ears.

No one has any idea where they are coming from, but they sound high and their sounds of their engines echo throughout the canyon. Then, the engines cut off.

"You said: 'a few vehicles in pursuit. Maybe'!" A harsh cry ensues, and Faithful's eyes widen. "We count three War Parties!"

Furiosa mumbles something that she cannot hear in response to this, and then, "Let's do this!"

Is the deal still on? Faithful hopes that for their sake, it is.

She expects to hear some clanking towards the back as Furiosa unhitches the pod, but there is nothing aside from more silence that greets her ears. After a couple of suspicious seconds Max notices too, but they are quickly distracted when they hear Angharad cry out softly.

"Angharad!" Faithful whispers in concern, and Max's hand flies up to cover the black haired woman's mouth.

Ignoring the warm hand that covers half her face, the black haired wife looks down at her blonde counterpart and sees her face contorted in pain while the other wives hold her. It is her baby, Faithful thinks, it must be the child ready to come out. But it is too soon, no? Angharad would have needed another month before the child should have been ready.

She tries to make it down into the secret compartment, but Max's hold on her is too tight and before she knows it he is actually moving out of the hole. Her attention is ripped away from Splendid and she has half a mind to yell at Max to ask him what the hell he thinks he's doing, until she hears Furiosa's cry.

"Max!" It rings out loud and clear, but Max is already in the driver's seat flipping the switches and accelerating as fast as he can. The rig complains, but starts to roll off.

What on earth has happened?

Bullets begin to fly noisily, ricocheting off of the side of the rig, and Faithful pulls Angharad towards her in the midst of all the noise. She prays to whoever is listening that Furiosa doesn't collide with one of those bullets, and ducks down even though she knows she has a small chance to be hit by gunfire.

"It's happening." Angharad gulps heavily once she reaches Faithful, holding her stomach as tenderly as she can.

The two regard each other carefully, before Faithful helps Angharad up into a better seated position.

"It's alright." The black haired wife soothes, holding Splendid's hand and smoothing her hair as she cries out again and muffles her noses with a spare hand.

Max changes gears, and the rig picks up the pace. At this point Faithful can hear shouts coming from the lower compartment, and she ducks her head down to see what the matter is.

All of the wives are struggling to pull Furiosa up through the bottom of the rig, while dust and rocks fly everywhere. She wasn't even aware that there was a hatch leading to the ground there; but Furiosa makes her way through it moments later and shouts for Faithful and Angharad get back into the driver's compartment.

Grimacing, Faithful forces herself to stand and pull Angharad along with her. She sits her behind the driver's seat and plops herself down beside her, helping the other wives find their seats after Furiosa has taken shotgun.

The first thing she notices when she looks outside are the motorcycles tailing them from either side of the canyon, and there are at least fifteen of them. Faithful can't count any more, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. They hop over and along the dunes, and one eventually makes his way in front of the rig. Her stomach drops a bit.

Max doesn't slow down, and punches the war rig into third gear while handing Furiosa her rifle. She loads it quickly, but before she can pull it out to shoot at the motorcyclist in front of them, he pulls out a live grenade from his pocket and chucks in in front of the rig.

It explodes seconds later, making the wives cry out as fire and smoke erupt from the engine. Max drives on, and Angharad shouts in pain once more as her labour continues. Faithful holds her tighter as the motorcycles begin to flank the rig, and to everyone's general horror and displeasure, the assault vehicles begin to actually jump over the rig to drop bombs on the engine.

With every explosion, the fire on the engine gets heavier, heat making its way into the driver's compartment as more and more bombs are dropped. The assault doesn't halt until Furiosa's rifle is finally ready, and she unloads the clip into the third biker that tries to drop a bomb on the engine.

Then, her and Max spring into action together, bullets flying as they aim at enemies Faithful can't even see. They shoot through windows, through the ceiling, through each other's limbs, creating a symphony of sounds that Joe himself would have been proud of. Motorcyclists fly through the air, using the dunes to propel themselves towards the rig as they try to further penetrate it's metal walls, but are quickly shot down.

Fury road lives up to it's name.

Angharad releases another hiss and groan of pain, and Faithful keeps stroking her hair. "Breathe."

It's easier said than done, because Furiosa flips a handle near the bottom of Max's seat that somehow causes a flurry of sand to cloud the rig, successfully putting out the fire but causing the air to thicken dramatically. Max drives on.

When the air clears and everyone is able to see and breathe again, Furiosa grabs her reloaded rifle and stands on her seat, head peeping through the top of the driver's compartment so that she can pick off the last remaining motorcyclists. Her and Max continue to work together, and Faithful can't help but appreciate the smoothness of their attack.

They work together like a well-oiled machine, shooting and ducking and shooting again, but the spell is broken when Furiosa passes the rifle to Angharad.

"Reload the clip!" She orders, disappearing again to gauge how many enemies are left, but Angharad doesn't move.

"I can't..." The blonde wife murmurs, and Faithful meets her eyes just as Toast rips away the rifle to reload it herself.

This is worse than she thought; Angharad is going into labour while three war parties and an additional army of Rock Riders are after them, but she forces herself to believe that this child will be born safely.

"The gun!" Furiosa cries with a sudden urgency, just as there is a large thump on the back of the war rig. "Give me the gun!"

"It's not loaded yet!" Toast screams back, fingers trembling as she tries to reload the gun as fast as she can.

"Come on!" Furiosa shouts, just as soon as the familiar voice of a Rock Rider can be heard above them. By some impossible feat, he must have landed his motorcycle on the top of the rig.

"We had a deal!" He sounds livid, and before they all know it, rapid fire is coating the ceiling of the driver's compartment.

The wives duck down and hold each other for protection, and it seems like this might actually be the end for someone until several pistol shots ring out, and Max saves the day yet again. Faithful doesn't realize that the sharp stinging sensation in her back is glass until she feels her hair flying out behind her through the broken window, long greasy locks tangling in the wind.

He's shot the rider through the back window, with deadly precision. It reminds her that this isn't Max's first rodeo by any means.

It seems like that rider was the last of them, but Max and Furiosa shoot out of the right hand window towards something else. They cease fire when the rider is apparently killed, but his motorcycle must have gone under the rig, because there is a large bang, and then suddenly the rig feels a lot lighter.

Faithful frowns at the strange weight change. What did they lose?

Furiosa looks out her side window to see what else they have to deal with, and Faithful dares to glance in the rear view mirror. What she sees almost makes her cry.

It is Joe's car, rapidly approaching them from behind. On the back, Rictus – one of his many deformed sons – eagerly waves a flamethrower spouting a huge line of fire, clearly ready burn all of them to a crisp. Their betrayal and abandonment has obviously caused quite a rift in the Citadel's forces, but not for any good reason.

She and the other wives are stolen property. Nothing more. The children Faithful and Angharad are carrying are seen as nothing more than stolen property as well, and this makes Faithful's blood boil all the more as she sits uselessly in the driver's compartment.

"He's going to shoot!" Toast suddenly cries, spotting Joe's famous chrome pistol. "Quick, Angharad, Faithful!"

The two are tugged towards the right hand door, where Angharad thrusts it open just in the nick of time to cover Furiosa's head and show Immortan Joe herself and Faithful's swollen stomachs. The two wives hang dangerously over the side of the rig, held by Splendid and Cheedo and holding onto each other for dear life.

Faithful can see him in all of his disgusting glory, blue eyes rimmed with red and black shadow, and she feels bile boil in the pit of her stomach. In that moment, she and Angharad become the anti-patriarchal human shields, staring down the Immortan's tyranny as if it will never touch them again.

"Splendid! Faithful!" Joe's furious cry, bellowing forth from his ventilator decorated with those hideous horse teeth that Faithful hates so very much, makes her and Angharad's glares burn all the stronger. "Those are my children! My property!"

Never. They will never be his property. One cannot own a human being.

Before she can shout insults back at him like she's always wanted to, Furiosa's revolver shot rings out from behind Angharad and the two are pulled back into the vehicle while one of Joe's cronies takes the bullet for his dictator. It is just enough of a distraction for the rig to move further away from Joe's car, but it doesn't take the warlord long to retaliate.

About a minute passes before there is an opportunity for Joe to use some rocks as a ramp to leap in front of the war rig, and Joe is in their line of sight once more. Furiosa's revolver takes quite some time to reload, but Max helps and picks off a few more of the War Boys hanging off of Joe's car before Rictus – who has swapped his flame thrower for a harpoon gun – shoots Max's steering wheel.

Faithful's stomach leaps as the wheel is pulled towards the window and gets hitched on the way, trapping Max's hand alongside it. If he is in pain, he doesn't make a sound, but they need to get him free, because now the rig has no one to direct it.

Furiosa works on grabbing a wrench to use as a makeshift wheel, while the Dag fetches the bolt cutters. Angharad is sitting closest to the door, and while Faithful knows it's a horrible idea to have her cut the chain that Rictus is controlling, she knows that Joe won't shoot when she or Angharad is in the way.

Holding her sister for everything that it's worth, she watches as Angharad carefully makes her way out of the door and begins to cut the chain. It takes a second of prying, but eventually the metal breaks with a final snap.

"Look out!" Toast screams milliseconds later, pointing towards the road ahead, and everyone's eyes are redirected towards the formation of rocks right in front of the rig.

It isn't much, but it's enough to kill someone, and Faithful's head whips towards Angharad as Joe also shouts for Splendid to pay attention. It would have been a heartwarming gesture, if not for the fact that Joe only cares about the 'goods' they are carrying in their bellies.

"Get in!" She tries to pull her sister into the compartment, but to her horror Angharad chooses to duck down instead, and when the rig hits the rocks Faithful can swear she feels her heart stop. "Angharad, no!"

She flings the door open again and almost hits Max in the face, who has poked his head out the driver's window to see what is happening with the wives. "Splendid!"

To her complete and utter relief, Angharad's blonde hair peeks out from a little nook behind the compartment. Faithful's heart clenches and she reaches for her sister, beckoning her to come closer so that she can pull her into her arms. Angharad nudges closer, using chains and spouts on the side of the war rig to make her way to Faithful, but as soon as their hands close around each other and Angharad has a hold of the door, her foot slips.

Faithful's world slows down.

"Angharad!" Faithful reaches for her, but the door cracks and starts to fall off of it's hinges, taking Angharad with it. She swings dangerously, and the door jerks again, lowering her further to the ground.  
The whole moment happens like a train wreck; Faithful wants to look away but she can't. She can't look away from the terror painted on Splendid's face. She reaches further, desperate to pull her sister to safety.

Can't lose Angharad. Can't lose faith.

"Faithful!"

Angharad falls, her sister's name being the last word to come out of her rosy lips.

Faithful's world stops. Max drives on.

"NO!"

"ANGHARAD!"

"Stop! Turn around!"

"Tell him to turn the rig around!"

There is nothing but dust in front of her. Nothing but Fury Road. No Angharad.

"Did you see it?" Furiosa asks.

"She went under the wheels." Max's harsh confession drags a cry out of Capable.

"Did you see it?" She repeats herself, unsure of whether or not Max is fooling them.

He repeats himself, each word driving daggers in Faithful's heart. She is still hanging halfway out of the compartment, frozen solid and incapable of moving from the spot in which she last saw Angharad. It feels like she's been sucked into another timeline; into a scene that wasn't supposed to take place. She can't be gone. It's impossible.

"We keep moving." Even Furiosa's judgment call doesn't move Faithful.

"No!"

"He doesn't know what he's talking about!"

"Turn it around!"

"We keep moving!" Furiosa barks back, and this only makes the wives cry harder.

Faithful's ears start to ring.

"Whatever happens, we're going to the Green Place." Toast mutters, and Faithful's ears ring harder. It's getting more difficult to hear.

"The stupid Green Place. We don't even know where to find it!" Cheedo shouts back at her, and then Faithful can hear no more.

There is no Green Place. Not without Angharad.

The ringing in her ears that won't stop, and then suddenly there's a break in the silence and it's as if a bullet has been shot at her. She moves like a spider, climbing over the wives to reach for a gun on the floor of the compartment and then back towards the open door. She has to go back and retrieve Angharad; she knows the wife is alive. Max has to be lying, there's no way Splendid would have perished in such a way.

She readies herself, preparing to jump out of the vehicle, and pushes off of the balls of her feet only to realize she is being held back by a number of hands. Faithful still can't hear anything, and she frowns as she struggles harder against whatever is holding her back.

She tries to jump again once the hands give a little, but she still can't propel herself out of the vehicle. So she tries another door.

It's as if her body is on autopilot. She keeps moving to whatever exit she can find and tries her best to clamber out of the vehicle, tries her best to do whatever she can to leave this war rig and get to Angharad.

She can't lose Angharad.

Eventually she moves to the steering wheel, ignoring the hands once more and reaching past Max to try and grab control of the vehicle. With inhuman strength, strength that she wasn't aware she had, she manages to just graze the makeshift wheel before Furiosa is pushing her back into her seat and screaming something at her that she can't hear. Faithful doesn't spare her more than a two second glance before she tries to climb out of the rig again, and she realizes that it's coming to a stop.

Whether it's because of her, or because of the steam that is leaking out of the engine she doesn't know, but she elbows and slaps her way out of what she realizes are the wives' grasps and jumps out of the vehicle.

"Faithful!" Her name is a far cry in the distance, but she can hear it faintly as she makes contact with the ground and protects her stomach when she rolls.

The sand doesn't blunt her fall at all, but she is numb and her entire body is tingling with what seems to be adrenaline. She stands and begins to sprint, pistol in hand, back to where she knows they left Angharad. She's always been the fastest of all the wives, so it makes sense to her that she can no longer feel any of their hands holding her back.

As she runs she spots a motorcycle in the distance with two riders on it, and forces herself to run faster so that she can have a clear shot at them. It's in her best interest to keep moving, but she doesn't know what sort of weapons they have and she knows she's putting her life on the line by running towards them.

It doesn't matter; Angharad is worth it. Angharad is worth anything.

Before she can even raise her weapon to try and aim, a crack shoots past her shoulder and the motorcycle is thrown off it's course as the riders both fall. Furiosa's aim holds true.

 _Good_. Faithful thinks. _More bullets for Joe_.

She keeps running. She runs for everything that's been lost so far; her dignity, her future, her family, the world, peace. She runs because it's the only thing she knows how to do anymore. She runs because she knows that eventually she'll get to Joe, who she can put a bullet in for everything he's ever done to her. She runs because it's the only way she can get Angharad back, and she can't live without Angharad.

Angharad, Angharad, Angharad.

Faithful spots the smoke coming from the crash where Joe's vehicle must have overturned, and sprints harder towards it. She can almost taste the victory, almost smell the gun powder after having lodged a bullet firmly in Joe's skull, almost hear the sound of him perishing pathetically behind her as she takes Angharad back to the war rig.

But she doesn't get to relish in any of those sensations, because she is abruptly tackled to the ground.

The violent motion throws her forward, and she goes to cradle her stomach where her child will no doubt be impacted by the blow, but she realizes that there is already a hand there. Whoever has tackled her goes rolling with her, and jerks her to the side before falling under her. It isn't Furiosa, she realizes in shock as she feels thick muscles dull her descent, fully expecting to have been caught by the original driver of the rig. It is Max.

Her ears are still ringing, and despite how thankful she is that he thought of her baby before she did, she needs to keep going. Leaving Angharad behind isn't an option.

So she scrambles to get up and moves to get her pistol from the ground, but Max's hand is faster than hers. He takes it out of her reach and forces her to look at him, forces her to realize that the other wives are still running after her and that the war rig is closer than she hoped it would be. She doesn't want her eyes to fuse with his, doesn't want to focus on the pools of blue that ground her whenever she stares.

His eyes are infinitely more beautiful than Joe's, even though they are the same colour. There is a benevolence in Max's gaze that Joe will never have.

Faithful realizes Max is speaking to her; registers that his mouth is moving, but she shakes her head and blinks stupidly, still unable to hear anything. He looks concerned, for the first time. Worried, for her.

She tries to push his hands off of her and get up again, but he pulls her back down. Again, she tries to get him off, but he is too strong. Still, Faithful pushes and pushes and fights back to try and get to Angharad. She'll go without the pistol at this point.

He won't let her go, and Faithful struggles as hard as she can to get out of his grasp that continues to pull her tighter and tighter. She doesn't realize it until later, but she hits him to try and move away. One kick actually gets his left arm off of her and she is able to crawl a ways away, but she only makes it a few feet before he's pulling her back.

It only takes a few more seconds before the rest of the wives arrive, assisting Max in holding Faithful down.

She is lost in a sea of white, and she begins to feel her body failing her. Begins to feel her energy waning as she succumbs to the exhaustion that comes with days lacking food or rest. Her muscles are burning and her eyes are sliding shut, but she fights it with everything she's got left. She cannot lose Angharad.

In a last ditch attempt to reach Splendid, she flails her limbs wildly and kicks with all of her might, ridding herself of just enough hands to be able to fling herself forwards like an animal and try to take off again. This time she actually is able to take a few steps, but finds herself tripping over her own feet, and Max easily grabs her again.

He keeps an unrelenting hold on her, pulling her to his chest and beginning to drag her back to the rig. He's learnt his lesson, and he's not going to waste any time trying to talk her back into reason right now. So while Furiosa repairs and cools off the engine, Max and the wives help pull Faithful back towards the vehicle. She still puts up a fight, but it is weak. The ringing in her ears starts to fade.

"Easy." Max is saying, chest rumbling as he speaks, and Faithful starts to drift out of consciousness. "You'll be alright."

She doesn't care what he says. She's lost a piece of herself in Angharad; left a part of herself back at the crash, and she wishes to never wake again.

As soon as she slumps into him, Max easily hauls her up into his arms and lets the red-head of the pack – he hasn't bothered to listen to any of their names yet besides Faithful, Angharad and Furiosa – cradle Faithful's head. The rest of the wives scurry along beside him, eyeing their sister nervously. No one talks on account of the violent death they have just witnessed – it's clearly taken a toll on all parties travelling in the war rig.

He figures his strength is why Furiosa demanded for him to run after Faithful in the first place; hell, he'd been planning on it anyway. Max is drawn to her in the same way he was drawn to Jessie, which confuses him and makes him feel dirty. It reminds him of times that he shouldn't be thinking of and makes him ache for his deceased wife and son.

Sprog. How long has it been since he visited their graves?

Visions of Glory and the other accusing dead suddenly appear in front of him again, almost making him stumble on his own two feet as he swears the little girl is actually standing in front of him covered in blood and grime, but he manages to suck himself back into reality when he reaches Furiosa.

"Put her in the front seat." The Imperator demands, regarding her carefully and eyeing some nasty bruises that Max has already spotted on her fair skin.

All of the wives are suspiciously pale, which Max supposes shouldn't be a surprise since Immortan Joe likely kept them locked away in an attempt to hide them from the Citadel's population. His hair raises and he winces at the thought of what Joe has done to these women, of what they have suffered through because of the tyrant's desire to breed a healthy heir.

He can't help but glance down at Faithful's stomach as he thinks of these horrible things, and he starts to feel something that he hasn't felt in a long time. He starts to feel compassion and the desire to protect. He starts to remember what it feels like to belong to a group of people all united under a common cause. Max's cause may not be the same as these women, but they are all in this together now.

As his arm grazes the V8 logo branded onto her back, he is forced to confront whatever feelings he has for the woman he's holding in his arms. He's been unable to keep his eyes off of her whenever he has the chance to look; she's absolutely captivating and it feels wrong for him to think that, but he does. He feels for her – hates that she's lost Angharad because of a man that has already stripped so much from these women's lives, but he wants to try and make life better for her and her sisters.

The feeling of actually caring for someone's well being besides his own is a feeling that he hasn't felt since Jessie, and having Faithful pregnant in his arms is just bringing up memories that are giving him a splitting headache.

So Max reluctantly lifts her into shotgun and watches as the rest of the wives climb in, re-assuming his seat at the wheel. He tries to focus on driving for awhile, but not without sparing glances towards Faithful as often as he can. He's earned everyone's trust; that much is clear, because Furiosa turns her back to him as she chains the door shut where Faithful is sitting.

He thinks it's a good precautionary measure.

"So uh, where is this Green Place?" Max finds himself asking once the rig has resumed normal pace yet again, grimacing as his hand starts to ache. He will have to bandage it soon; it is bleeding too heavily for his liking, but he doesn't want to take his hands off the wheel.

So far, this 'Green Place' has been mentioned several times, all with a great sense of importance. The wives speak of it as though it is holy ground, untouchable by the wasteland or any of the horrible populations inhabiting it. This peaks Max's curiosity, which is why he has decided to question it.

"It's a long night's run, heading east." Furiosa grunts from the floor beside his seat, where she has taken to grabbing some tools and her rifle. She doesn't elaborate any more, and Max lifts a brow as he continues to drive. "We need inventory. Match every gun with its bullets."

She waits for someone to take the bag of mismatched ammunition, and eventually the short haired girl sitting on the far right grabs the bag. Max wonders why she is the only wife with such short hair, but he decides to keep the question to himself, just the same as when he was curious about the marks on Angharad's face. These 'treasures' are a mysterious bunch, that much is certain.

"I'm gonna go and do some repairs." Furiosa announces, slinging her rifle and tools across her bag.

"We need someone down the back." Max replies without skipping a beat, knowing fully well that a lookout towards the back of the rig is the best idea in a situation like this one. Joe won't be happy that one of his most prized breeders has just been killed, which means having a second pair of eyes on the back of their heads is high on their priority list at the moment.

Max doesn't volunteer himself, as he assumes she wants him to continue to drive the rig. In addition to this, he does not want to put any distance between himself and Faithful.

"I'll go." To his surprise, the red-head volunteers herself, much to Furiosa's chagrin.

"No." She refutes, shaking her head. "I want you to stay together."

"I can do it." The wife insists, and Furiosa doesn't fight her.

Max chalks the moment up to exhaustion and a bit of guilt, as Furiosa probably feels extremely low after the death of the blonde mother as well. With a jolt of realization, he remembers that the now deceased wife was going into labour minutes before her death, which makes him feel all the worse. He worriedly glances to his right where Faithful is still out cold, and looks down at her stomach to try and guess how far along she is.

She cannot be more than five or six months along, which makes his heart relax a little bit. She has time before she goes into labour, and he suspects this journey of theirs will not last for more than three or four months. Again his mind focuses on the circumstances in which a child could have been conceived in the Citadel, and an angry shiver runs down his spine at the thought of Joe doing whatever he wants with her.

His hands automatically tighten on the wheel, before he frowns and forces himself to relax. Why does he feel this way? He has only spent a mere day or so with these women. How is it possible that he has developed such strong ties to this wife he knows so little about?

"Well," The voice of the wife counting the bullets interrupts his train of thought, and he redirects his attention to her through the rear view mirror. "We've only got four for Big Boy here, so he's all but useless."

She pats the large rifle, the one that Furiosa was wielding expertly to kill the Rock Riders before Angharad perished, then holds up a tiny revolver and swings it around sarcastically. "But we can squirt off this little pinky a raunchy twenty nine times."

"Angharad used to call them Antiseed." The younger blonde wife behind Max murmurs, tracing the ceiling of the driver's compartment that is lined with the logo of the V8.

"Plant one and watch something die." The brunette curled up in the back seat finishes for her, clutching the blanket further around her shoulders.

They are speaking of those who killed the world, Max realizes as he thinks about the analogy for a moment. Comparing bullets to drops of semen that wipe out generations instead of build them. They aren't wrong, but it's a strange way to look at ammunition. He decides he likes the analogy.

So he drives on, in a rig filled with Antiseed and exhausted women and empty spirits, reminding himself that hope is dangerous. That it isn't worth his time. That it will drive him crazy.

But when he spares five seconds to rip his eyes off the road to look at Faithful curled into the passenger's seat beside him, he feels a blossom of hope that he just can't ignore sit like a lead weight at the bottom of his stomach. His heart nearly skips a beat in response, and Max almost curses.

What the hell kind of magic does this woman have?

He switches into third gear, tries to think about something else – anything else, but he can't take his mind off the fact that maybe, just maybe, they all might make it out of this thing alive. He wishes he could, but he can't rid himself of the hope that he's just found by looking at Faithful.

So when his eyes finally snap back onto the road ahead, there's a different kind of fire lit behind them.


End file.
